


repose

by cherrymq



Category: Breach: The Archangel Job
Genre: Gabriel-Centric, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, POV Gabriel, Post-Canon, basically gabriel Realizing things at 3 am and crying bc he loves raphael, gender neutral pronouns used for raphael, three am realizations ft gabriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:56:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28789089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrymq/pseuds/cherrymq
Summary: Years later, Gabriel lives. Not as a Ghost or an Angel—but as a person.
Relationships: Gabriel/Raphael (Breach: The Archangel Job)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	repose

**Author's Note:**

> this is....very all over the place. the first half was the original draft i had for my other btaj fic (emotional vulnerability? in this economy?) but randomly decided to continue on it at one in the morning so yea,,, anw i did not reread this at all and i got no clue wtf im talking about in it but im just gonna blame it on gabriel's late night brain wormz ok

It was always a strange feeling — one he should have been used to by now, really — to know so much about somebody and yet nothing at all. To learn of someone through detailed files and the words of another was, to him, the same as getting sent an email for a new assignment from your nine to five job. Yet, there was almost always a disconnect between the words on the paper and the actual person. A difference between flesh and mannerism and faces that twitched and changed versus the unchanging images of photographs, candid or otherwise, and the detachment of case files with their printed lines and bullet points.

(Granted, that ‘always’ was limited to the times he didn’t have to put a bullet through their brain almost immediately after meeting them.)

That was why it had been so easy, at first, to dismiss that feeling of intrigue that he’d always felt when it came to  _ them. _

To push it aside and label it like the others, no matter how much he knew that label to be unfitting. In the first place, they were not like the other people he’d had to learn about in the past. Afterall, they weren’t just a mission but a  _ promise. _ Perhaps that was why it had been so much easier to think of them outside of ‘work’. Why he’d allowed himself to be so lax on his thoughts of them until those thoughts started to be tinged with a mundanity that scared him.

It had been during a rare moment of rest for him, when he first felt the seeds of his ‘interest’ veering into places it shouldn’t have been. 

A fleeting  _ “I wonder if they like vani—” _

He hadn’t let himself finish the thought.

Gabriel knew things about them that they themselves didn’t know. Knew their date of birth, where they went to high school, their  _ social security number. _ He knew the things he needed to know. 

And yet, he wanted to know so much more. Wanted to know all the useless details and particulars of Raphael because—

Despite himself, despite the consequences, despite everything, Gabriel didn’t want to know just what he  _ needed  _ to know. 

He wanted to know how their eyes looked when the sunlight hit them at a certain time, how many sugars they liked in their coffee or whether they preferred tea (and if so, if they liked milk with their tea), how their laugh sounded like, whether they’d like his cupcakes or not (which was ridiculous because  _ of course _ they’d like them) and— how they would think of  _ him. _

(He tried not to dwell on the last thought too much — or at all.)

.

.

.

But, despite his best efforts, the walls he had spent so long building seemed to fall all too easily as the words he hadn't even realized he'd always wished to hear passed Raphael's mouth.

And here he was now, years later, with an arm curled around Raphael staring up at the white popcorn ceiling of their flat together. Because somehow  _ that _ was a thing now—living together, being in each other's spaces, being  _ together  _ in a way that meant bodies pressed together under two sets of blankets and lips that still tingled from their now customary bedtime kisses.

The wall clock read three in the morning, it's second hand ticking on as Gabriel considered those thoughts. His eyes flicked down from the ceiling to Raphael. Gabriel could feel the steady rise and fall of their chest as they slept and felt a strange epiphany of sorts. With his freehand, he reached for the arm Raphael had wrapped around his midsection and felt for their pulse.

It thumped against his middle and pointer fingers, strong and beautifully alive. 

Like Raphael was. Like  _ he  _ was.

It seemed like such a ridiculous thing to realize about oneself at three in the morning but the realization left him feeling both breathless and free, as if a crushing weight had been lifted from his chest allowing him to really, truly, breathe for the first time. 

It had been an easy thing to be a ghost, so much so that Gabriel had almost forgotten that he wasn't one. Maybe it was partly out of necessity, to keep himself sane through dangerously consecutive sleepless nights and the  _ dying  _ and coming back alive. Maybe it was just because it was easier. 

Easier to kill, die, and lie when you've convinced yourself you're nothing but the mist of a man that was already gone. 

Gabriel had always been more in touch with his humanity than most in his line of work but it was one thing to abide by morals labeled as such and another thing to be aware of yourself as something tangible

Something,  _ someone, _ that could exist as they were and not as a front or as a position. Someone who could be held during winter nights like these. This revelation had crept up on him—like a back hug (because Gabriel received those now, regularly enough that he'd stopped flinching and mistaking them for an ambush)—and he felt a strange warmth blossom in his chest.

He was  _ alive. _

He was alive and in love and loved back by somebody that made him feel human again. Somebody who'd asked him where he was going with eyes that told him not to leave—not without them—and wrapped their arms around him to try and make him understand such a seemingly simple truth. 

They loved him. 

In spite of all the secrets and masks and lies, they  _ loved _ him. And they continued to do so even after certain truths came into light, even after peeling back the layers Gabriel had learned to wrap himself with. 

And here they were now, arms embracing one another as one slept and the other stared at them in the dim light of their bedroom with slightly too glossy eyes filled with love and gratitude.

In the end, Gabriel had learned every seemingly useless detail that made up Raphael—was still learning things about them everyday—but they had learned about him as well. Learned and reminded him that he was only human,  _ taught _ him that it was okay to be just that.

He pressed a kiss on the top of Raphael's head and closed his eyes and let himself be lulled to sleep by the sound of Raphael's breathing and the ticking of the clock.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading to the end!! hope u guys didnt pull a muscle from all the jumping around;; was listening to take care of yourself by the childlike empress on repeat towards the end, 10/10 would recommend


End file.
